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I'm going to make a slide-out trolley/shelving unit to go under my stairs. This will be made to fit fairly snugly into the area to maximise usable storage space (I'm planning to make it 1-2 cm narrower/shorter than the space). This will have castors on the bottom so it can be pulled out and pushed back in.

Would I be best off using fixed castors, or swivel ones? Swivel ones would potentially handle misalignment better, whereas fixed ones would not suffer from any "wobble" when they turn around.

Here are some pictures of what I am planning: enter image description here enter image description here

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Part of the answer to this will be determined if you are pushing in the unit from the side of the stairs or from the taller space into the lower height wedge space. Fixed casters may be more appropriate for the side access because there will be benefit to the guided straight in/out positioning where the storage unit will be higher on one side than the other.

It is common to put fixed casters on one end of a moveable item and the swivel casters on the other end. The best advantage is having the swivel casters on the end you push/pull from so that you can steer the cabinet into its final location. It may help to envision a grocery cart that is usually equipped with fixed + swivel wheels. Sometimes you just have to get ahold of the front of a grocery cart to back it up into a tight spot.

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  • I would be pushing in the direction of the stairs (so standing underneath the stairs, rather than beside them). I've added some images to illustrate what I mean.
    – Matthew Dresser
    Commented Sep 11, 2018 at 16:04
  • This is a pretty good solution, although I would have suggested that for a linear travel bin as described, you would get away easily with fixed wheels. The alignment is "solved" because they are constructed to be aligned with the bracket and you would align the bracket with the housing/cabinet/bin. One never knows if one desires to move it to another location, which makes the grocery trolley option superior, avoiding the disadvantages of four casters.
    – fred_dot_u
    Commented Sep 11, 2018 at 16:33

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